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Month: October 2016

So the big deal is how my transition doesn’t seem to be a big deal at all to Mom. She didn’t seemed phased at all by finally meeting *me* face to face.

Plus she thought I was dressed “stylishly casual” — which was nice because I had apprehensions about mother-daughter conflicts over what to wear.

(When she first saw photos back in July, she thought my outfits were not work appropriate. I was wearing sundresses and I had to explain that, no these were intended as weekend wear. Although she did say tonight, that she realized part of her concerns were that she feels not many women wear dresses these days. Part of it, I realized, is that she hates wearing dresses because she thinks they don’t look flattering on her.)

And a nice bonus: She said my brother just wanted to know what had taken me so long to get here.

My brother emailed me about an hour ago to say: “I am not losing a brother, I am gaining a sister! Congrats, I fully support you in your transition.”

Yes, I’ve been bawling…

I also just got a reply from one of my cousin, saying: “I completely support and respect your decision.” It turns out that his ex-brother in law’s daughter is currently going though a gender change, and he’s been following her story online, and also a good friend, who he’s known since grammar school, has a son who went through a gender change a couple years ago.

Turns out my brother called Mom, because he wasn’t sure my email was some sort of same (probably due to the subject line I used). If I don’t hear back from the remaining relatives, I’ll try re-sending the email with a new subject line.

These days I’m often feeling like simultaneously a girl on the verge of womanhood and a woman of “a certain age” — if that makes any sense.

It’s a weird feeling to be moving into womanhood without having a girlhood, with all the little things one picks up along the way. To give a trite example: When my hair gets long enough, I’ll need someone to help me learn how to how to braid my hair, since I have no clue how to do it.

OTOH, I didn’t (directly*) grow up with some of more toxic parts of girlhood. And I’m really thankful my second puberty comes at a point in my life where I’ve got enough decades to be far more able to handle the inherent emotional rollercoaster.

* Myself and my trans-feminine sisters did still hear the same messages, albeit not directly aimed at us, especially since we far more attuned to them than cisgender boys.

So this afternoon, I sent emails to my brother, my aunt and uncle, and my three cousins, telling them that I’m trans and I’m transitioning.* (As mentioned, Mom knows and has been extremely supportive, but none of the others know.) Just waiting to hear back from them now.

Not sure why I’m anxious about it, none of them are particularly close and some of them I’d be happy to have them out of my life. (I see the relatives once a year at awkward Christmas dinners — several of them I’m sure are supporting Trump, ’nuff said — and my brother let his wife push me and my Mom out of their lives, so our communication had been limited to Christmas cards and the occasional email/text about cute things his kids did.)

I suppose it’s two reasons.

First, I’ve been extremely privileged and lucky in my transition, and so far everyone I’ve come out to has been supportive. So this will likely be first time that I’ll run into disapproval. Expect the worse, hope for the best, but realistically there probably will be a range of reactions. The rational part of me keeps reminding myself that these are people who aren’t part of my life, so why should I care much about what they think, and if they’re actively hostile, then I don’t have a problem cutting them out of my life.

Probably the bigger thing is knowing that this is one of the last major steps, one of those points where things move from possibilities to probabilities to inevitabilities. I suppose it’s not unlike the feeling if you’re about to emigrate to another country to start a new life, or about to get married or about to have a child. You want the new life ahead of you, but there’s still the jitters.

* Mom had actually given me a kick in the butt about this. Originally I was going to wait until December, but before I left on vacation she asked me in so many words, what I was waiting for. Aside from just getting it off my chest, earlier is good since I’ll know where I stand as far as which relatives may/may not want me to the come for Christmas dinner.